In what year did Amazon.com go public?

Amazon.com went public in 1997.

Amazon held its initial public offering on May 15, 1997, selling shares to the public during the early expansion of internet businesses. The company’s stock began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol AMZN, helping provide capital for rapid growth.

At the time of the IPO, Amazon was still primarily an online bookseller and was not yet the diversified technology and retail company it would become. The offering helped fund expansion, fulfillment infrastructure, technology development, and the addition of new product categories.

The year is sometimes confused with 1994, when Jeff Bezos founded the company, or 1995, when Amazon’s website launched. It is also distinct from 2000, a year associated with the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Amazon survived that downturn, despite severe pressure on technology stocks, and continued expanding into cloud computing, logistics, digital media, and online retail.